A final trip to Perth

As we were making plans to migrate to the United States, we drove from Sydney across the Australian continent to Perth, to visit Elle’s sister and family. On the way over I stopped in Kambalda, a mining town, and visited friend Terry Potts and family, where we spent the night. Next day we headed on to Perth.

Raina and husband Arnold suggested we take a trip down the west Australian coast to Cape Leeuwin. The cape is a craggy promontory where you don’t want to lose footing and fall. Beneath you, as you stand on the rocks, is a raging, crashing surf bashing away at the rocks below; it’s the confluence of the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, and the Indian Ocean to the west.

Just north of the cape is one of the world’s greatest surf beaches. Arnold and I had to have a swim there; the waves were perfectly shaped, coming around a point of land about a mile away. The waves were about a hundred yards apart, separated by flat ocean; as they came ashore they piled up into ten-foot-high surf and crashed ashore. Absolutely perfect for surfing competitions. Arnold and I swam out a few yards and caught an incoming wave. What a ride! And what a crash at the end of it. Well, we deserved it. It was a part of manhood bravado.

When we arrived back in Sydney we learned that our little toy poodle had died. Karl took it hard, but he was resilient and got over it. Bimbo had been a puppy-mill dog and had serious physical problems. His death was timely, as we were trying to work out how to take him with us back to the US. His death meant that we could make a more leisurely trip out of it, which we did.